'Conditional' ceasefire in Gaza? Trump warns Hamas, says will 'eradicate' the Palestinian militants if...
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "'Conditional' ceasefire in Gaza? Trump warns Hamas, says will 'eradicate' the Palestinian militants if...")
File Photo: Donald Trump Photograph: (AFP)
Trump warned Hamas will be “eradicated” if it breaks the Gaza truce he brokered, but said he’ll give them a chance to honour the deal. Labelling the ceasefire as conditional, he insisted Israel would go back in “if I asked”.
US President Donald Trump delivered a blunt warning to Hamas on Monday (Oct 20), saying the militant group would be "eradicated" if it breaks the fragile Gaza truce he helped broker — but he also said he would give the militants a chance to honour the deal. Trump, speaking at the White House while hosting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, framed the Gaza ceasefire agreed on recently as conditional. Here's what he said.
A 'conditional' ceasefire in Gaza?
Speaking to the press, Trump said, "We made a deal with Hamas that they're going to be very good, they're going to behave, they're going to be nice". He added that "And if they're not, we're going to go, and we're going to eradicate them, if we have to. They'll be eradicated, and they know that."
The comments came as tensions threatened to undo the ceasefire. Israel has accused Hamas of delaying the return of bodies of hostages and of mounting attacks, while Hamas negotiators insist they remain committed. Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s top negotiator, told Egypt’s Al-Qahera News that extracting bodies has been "extremely difficult," but that Hamas wants the agreement to hold and is working to honor it. "We are finding it extremely difficult to extract the bodies, but we are serious and working hard to extract them," he said in comments broadcast Tuesday morning.
"The Gaza agreement will hold, because we want it to and our will to abide by it is strong," he added.
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Trump warns Hamas against public executions
Condemning reports of public executions carried out by Hamas against rivals and alleged collaborators, Trump said the United States would not lead any ground intervention. He pointed instead to a coalition of countries that have signaled readiness to join stabilisation forces in Gaza, which he said would "love to go in." He also insisted that Israel would "go in two minutes" if he asked them to. "But right now, we haven't said that. We're going to give it a little chance, and hopefully there will be a little less violence. But right now, you know, they're violent people," he added.
He painted Hamas as weakened, saying its regional backer Iran is unlikely to intervene after strikes earlier this year. "They got very rambunctious, and they did things that they shouldn't be doing, and if they keep doing it, then we're going to go in and straighten it out, and it'll happen very quickly and pretty violently." Trump insisted that Hamas "don't have the backing of really anybody anymore. They have to be good, and if they're not good, they'll be eradicated."
